Names for the Sorrowful Mysteries

A friend of mine from high school died last Friday, and though we weren’t close — in fact, until January I hadn’t seen him since our high school graduation twenty years ago, though we’d connected on Facebook a few years back — I had the privilege of seeing him a few times in the last couple of months, and seeing again his warm, thoughtful self and easy sense of humor, even in the midst of his worsening condition as a result of a tenacious brain tumor that they could never quite get all of. He left behind six children — his youngest the same age as my youngest — and so this week has been a heavy week. I was little more than an acquaintance at his wake and funeral, surrounded by his family and friends who had been a real part of his life without a twenty-year gap, and still … I’m so sad.

I’ve got a bunch of stuff going on here too — not bad, just busy — and I’m going to be off the blog all next week (except the Monday consultation) for Holy Week, so I thought these next four days would be perfect to re-share the Rosary Names series I did last year during Lent. I’m starting with the Sorrowful today, since that’s how I’m feeling. Please add any ideas you have in addition to those left in the comments last year!

This is very fortuitous that you reposted now. For a couple of weeks I had been intending to come back to this post anyway with some additions. Now you spurred me on. I was recently at a 40 hours devotion at our parish and the priest was sharing ideas for prayer before the Eucharist by placing ourselves at the foot of the cross with the witnesses. He talked about the holy witnesses and that we should know them. So of course there are the ones mentioned either in the post or comments – the Marys and John and Longinus. And in Mark’s gospel Salome is named as one of the women present at the crucifixion (in addition to being one of the women going to the tomb, which was mentioned in the comments). He also said tradition has Joanna (wife of Chuza, steward to Herod Antipas) and Susanna also as witnesses at the cross. Though not named, Luke, Mark, and Matthew all indicate “other women” who had ministered to Jesus who were there watching. Earlier in Luke’s gospel Susanna and Joanna are named as women who were followers of Jesus and who ministered to their (Jesus and disciple) needs. And Joanna is listed in Luke’s gospel as one of the women who took spices to the tomb and is recognized as Joanna the Myrrh Bearer in Orthodox tradition.

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"Choose your names in a joyful way. / Think of the Saints and holy things, / And then just watch how your heart sings / When the name meant for you to choose / Comes to your mind, as you do muse!"
~ name wisdom from my Mom, an Irish poet

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